My buddy at one point had 1200 board games and he was always asking me to play, but I never would. At some point I broke down and played a game he owned called Jamaica. I really liked it..... so much so that in the last year I became a real board game junkie. I have purchased about 60 games in the last 12 months. Prices go from $12 - $50 per game for the ones I own. I would say $25 is average for me. I am not talking about mass market games that you can buy at Walmart or Target. I buy 90% of mine online - usually from Amazon. Some of my favorites are: Takenoko - grow bamboo, and please the emperor. Jamaica - a pirate ship racing game Lanterns - based on a Japanese festival with lanterns Tsuro - move your piece around the board and try not to force yourself off the board. And don't bump anybody else or you are both out of the game. Pandemic: The Cure ( you know the app / game, most likely ).... a cooperative dice game to stop a Pandemic from killing everybody Any other players?
Not sure if I'm big time, but I have quite a few board games acquired over the years. Some of my favorites: King of Tokyo 7 Wonders 7 Wonders Duel Carcassonne Ghost Stories Ticket to Ride Tiny Epic Galaxies Are you on boardgamegeek?
Been playing board games for a long time, kids are 7 and 3 and... it's still hard to play anything too serious. All time favorites are Advanced Squad Leader, Advanced Civilization, Twilight Imperium, Illuminati, Settlers Card Game, Carcassone... Currently we're playing Sushi Go, Eye Found It, Pokemon TCG, My Little Pony TCG, Fluxx, Happy Family, Parchesi... One more we play, I had as a kid and our kids love it is I Can Count, and that probably dates me a bit...
Avalon Hill was based near us and one of my brothers use to help them test Advanced Squad Leader expansions for them. I never was into Squad Leader myself, but that was his favorite game at the time.
I don't get to play as much as I like, but I'm a big board game fan. Staring at a big stash of them in my cupboard right now, they deserve more play... A few years ago I told an old colleague that I loved board games. When I told her which ones she rolled her eyes and recommended some stuff with a bit more depth than Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit Settlers of Catan was a gateway game for me into more complex stuff. Pandemic, plus these two in particular: have become big faves as well, especially on the iPad I highly, highly recommend Betrayal At The House On The Hill. It starts as an RPG-lite co-op game where you're exploring a haunted house as you go. The twist is that at some point one of your party is revealed to be the betrayer (they don't know themselves until that moment either) and then you have to escape, or meet a win-condition, while they try and stop you. The shape of the house is generated by your actions in the game and changes each game too. It's ace.
I love Zombiecide. It takes a while to set up but it's absolutely a blast to play!!! Risk is a classic and never gets old for me!
Have you seen Risk Legacy? It's very cool, one of those ones where the board, factions and rules evolve with each new game up to a certain point. It comes with loads of additional packs of cards lining various parts of the game box, which you only get to open when certain conditions are met. Well worth the £40 I spent on it. Star Wars Risk is a good spin on it too, where you play as the Empire, Rebels, or the Hutts. I cynically expected all the spin-offs to be cash-ins that weren't particularly thought through, but was pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong. They're balanced pretty well.
If you added up the hours, I've probably spent several months playing Risk. That said, the original game has a number of things going against it - mostly that it's an elimination game that takes many hours to play. When everyone knows what they're doing it almost always boils down to 2 players who cat-and-mouse each other until someone gets a string of good dice roles and finally gets enough of an advantage to win. (Another fantastic game that suffers from the same problem is Titan, which makes it hard to bring to the table...) Thankfully we've got a couple of good variants that actually end! My personal favorite is Risk 2210, I also like the LotR version. Haven't manage to play Legacy yet. On iOS, I love Strategery, and KDice was good, though it's implementation was not so good. If only I had a functioning iPad I could play Titan...
Without spoiling it, Legacy deals with that issue you describe pretty well. It takes a lot more than regular Risk for a player to be completely eliminated. Didn't happen in any of games I've played so far and was all the more fun for that.
I just bought the 10th Anniversary edition of Ticket to Ride.... the exact same game, but so much nicer to play with a very much larger board, and all upgraded components. I joined a board gaming meetup group and play new stuff every week. And I am in the process of looking for a place to open a board game cafe.
I'm not sure I'd want a larger board and such. The only larger part I want is the cards, and you can get that with the 1910 expansion which is pretty inexpensive.
I like board games, but it's always hard to get my wife to play anything other than Settlers of Catan. That said, I've got my eye on Dominion. I've been enjoying the iPad version.
The only board game my wife likes is Ticket to Ride. However one of my kids enjoys board games, so I play with him and then I have some friends that get together every month or two to play games.
I am up to about 7 board games from KS... I have received 4 so far. They have been pretty decent, and amazingly, they actually were delivered when they were supposed to be. I am waiting on one called Santorini, that I am just really excited for that one... it's an abstract game that plays on a small representation of the Greek island, and it uses Greek gods as part of the game. Sadly, the developer has indicated that it is 3 months behind schedule due to some kind of production issue. And I am waiting on UnFair.... a game about an amusement park with "unfair" rules / gameplay. I belong to a board game Meetup group and get to play new games every week..... I played Suburbia last week for the first time. I was far overmatched by experienced players.
Paperback is a fun deck building word game. Just played that this past weekend with friends. Great game. 6nimmt is a simple game that's lots of fun and kind of blows your mind when you play it. And it's inexpensive. I got my copy for $13 from a local game store, but it's $10.xx on amazon. Definitely recommended.